Project Pencils Collects Tools for Learning for Neediest in Classrooms
Focus America founder, Shelly Zimmerman, right, and Cendant volunteer,
Bridgette Robertson collect backpacks and school supplies for students in New Jersey and Illions.
Hundreds of students headed back to school this fall with backpacks overfl owing with pencils, notebooks,
paper and other supplies thanks to the work of Focus America’s second annual Project Pencils School Supply Drive.
The New Jersey-based nonprofit organization collected and distributed new school supplies for more than 1,000
children from low-income communities in New Jersey and Illinois.
High schoolers, college students and adult volunteers
collected new supplies from houses of worship and corporations, and distributed them in August to children in Morristown
and Irvington, New Jersey, and Pembroke, Illinois. More than 850 backpacks were donated to children so they could arrive
pre-pared on the first day of school. Boxes of notebooks and pens, pencils, paper and art supplies were sent to children in both states.
"Communities need to become mutual sources of support for each other."
- Shelly Zimmerman, president, Focus America
“Communities need to become mutual sources of support for each other,” says Shelly Zimmerman, president of Focus America.
“The greatest power children have to escape the cycle of poverty that they have inherited is through their education. By providing
them with new tools at the beginning of the school year, we are arming them with the ability to learn – the only way children can raise
the bar on their own lives.”
Project Pencils is one of many initiatives Focus America has started to help needy children and families across the nation. Local students
collect school supplies, clothing and gifts for seasonal drives as well as volunteer as helpers at Puzzle Pieces Playschool, a child development
program located at the College of St. Elizabeth in Morris Township, New Jersey, and community leaders in low-income classrooms through the Internet
with Project Protégé. The organization recently received a national Daily Points of Light Award for its commitment to connecting Americans through
service and to helping meet critical needs in the community.
Focus America was founded in 2002 by students from the College of St. Elizabeth. The students approached Zimmerman, an advisor at the college,
requesting internships that would engage the man-agement, business and communication skills they were learning in their classes. Zimmerman decided
the best way for them to learn about management was to start a volunteer-run organization.
Focus America
P.O. Box 267
Convent Station, N.J. 07961
www.focusamerica.org
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